JERSEY CITY — Jack Shaw, a Jersey City political consultant who was among 44 people charged in a federal corruption probe, has died.

Two officials with knowledge of the investigation said Shaw was found at home with several bottles of pills nearby. One of the officials said Shaw, 61, had an unspecified medical condition (as in “He’s now dead”), and authorities are not jumping to conclusions about the cause of his death.

Jumping? I thought it was pills?

Shaw was a longtime political lieutenant for former Governor Jim Florio, joining his camp while Florio was still in Congress, before becoming an operative for the Hudson County Democrats around 1991.

How convenient. Someone who knew pretty much everything about all the folks involved accidentally messes up his heart medicine.

What with the stress of the indictment and all, perfectly understandable.

(CNN) — The same blue food dye found in M&Ms and Gatorade could be used to reduce damage caused by spine injuries, offering a better chance of recovery, according to new research.
Rats injected with BBG not only regained their mobility but temporarily turned blue.

Rats injected with BBG not only regained their mobility but temporarily turned blue.
Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center found that when they injected the compound Brilliant Blue G (BBG) into rats suffering spinal cord injuries, the rodents were able to walk again, albeit with a limp.

The only side effect was that the treated mice temporarily turned blue.

Mice able to walk for more than four hours may have a serious medical condition…

This does make one wonder, though: just what the heck else all these chemicals and dyes and additives are doing to you.

Mind you, as a life-long New Jersey resident they ain’t doing diddly to me.

ROME — Officials say a Swedish couple looking for the pristine waters of the popular island of Capri ended some 400 miles (660 kilometers) away in the northern industrial town of Carpi after misspelling the destination on their car’s GPS.

Angelo Giovannini, a spokesman for the Carpi town hall, near Modena, said Tuesday the couple drove into the main square last week and asked the local tourist office how to reach Capri’s famed Blue Grotto sea cave.

Giovannini said “we thought they might mean a restaurant. Capri is an island, they did not even wonder why they didn’t cross any bridge or take any boat.”

As they say on Mapquest: it’s good to make a “Reality Check” when you follow these things.

…Gates has also turned his attention to another great scourge of humankind, the hurricane. In a 2008 patent filing that recently came to light, Bill Gates and his friends presented a scheme for reducing the strength of hurricanes by cooling sea surface temperatures, using a fleet of ships that bring up cold water from the depths. …

Daggum!! “Really/no shit/NO SHIT?!?!?!” you ask yourself. “The richest bazilliongazilliontrazillionaire in the whole wide world wants to spend his money to SAVE LITTLE BANGLA-COLA FROM DESTRUCTION? God bless the GREAT man’s pointy little head!”
And you weep. And wipe your wet eyes and runny nose.

…Of course, a big difference in this case is that one of the people making the suggestion is one of the world’s richest men. But don’t look for Gates to fund the deployment of thousands of these vessels.

One of the patent filings proposes paying for the equipment through the sale of insurance policies in hurricane-prone areas, in addition to funding from state, federal and local government agencies.

And you shake your head and just say, “Shit NO!” God forbid ~ if he ever pulls this off?

Would the last Bangla-colian leaving the coast please leave a bag of ice?

I don’t think I’m overstating matters in the headline. The City of New York operates 11 hospitals via the Health and Hospitals Corporation [ed: see the comments for clarification on relationship between NYC and the HHC]. They are: Bellevue, Coney Island, Elmhurst, Harlem, Jacobi, Kings County, Lincoln, Metropolitan, North Central Bronx, Queens and Woodhull.

Each and every one of those hospitals was found faking records, including coverups of medical malpractice and inadequate care.

Read his whole story for the full details. Shocking, disgusting…and scary as hell.

This is what happens when you take the profit motive out of an industry and make them accountable to no one.

But if his next business venture goes through he will be my hero, regardless of the deleterious waistline implications

Golfer Phil Mickelson, a two-time Masters winner and top-five finisher at Augusta National this year, is among a trio of businessmen who have made a late bid to buy a Nashville-based Waffle House franchisee out of bankruptcy.

The group’s bid competes with an earlier offer from parent company Waffle House of Norcross, Ga., to buy the SouthEast Waffles franchisee out of bankruptcy for nearly $19 million.

Mickelson’s group, GS Acquisitions LLC, has offered $20.2 million in cash and payments over time for the 105-restaurant group that spans four states, according to U.S. Bankruptcy Court documents filed late Tuesday.

A 23-year-old pre-med student who “got caught up with friends who were pulling him” toward homosexuality is well and undergoing Christian counseling, his family says.

…The following day, Swanson said he received a text from Faulkner indicating that his parents wanted to take him to a “place in Pensacola” to address his sexuality. Swanson would later call the Union County Sheriff’s Department to say that Faulkner was being taken against his will by his “fundamental Baptist” parents.

Man, I can only hope he’s not with the snake charmers across the street.

The descendants of an African chief who was hanged and decapitated by a Dutch general 171 years ago reluctantly accepted the return of his severed head Thursday, still angry even as the Dutch tried to right a historic wrong.

…But descendants of the chief said they were not consoled.

“I am hurt, angry. My grandfather has been killed,” said Joseph Jones Amoah, the great, great grandson of the chief.

WAS killed, son. “WAS“. A hunnert and seventyone years ago.

Not killed yesterday. Or killed last week. And ~ Dutch groveling aside (“Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen used the ceremony to apologize for Dutch involvement in the slave trade.“) ~ NOT killed without a certain amount of provocation…

…The head was taken by Maj. Gen. Jan Verveer in 1838 in retaliation for Bonsu’s killing of two Dutch emissaries, whose heads were displayed as trophies on Bonsu’s throne, said Arthur Japin, a Dutch author who discovered the king’s head when he was working on a historical novel.

I hope their families are demanding a similar courtesy.

Never ones to waste a good almost two centuries old crisis, the Ghanian graduates of the Rahm Emanuel School of Gimme swung into feigned outrage action.

…The elders demanded the Dutch government provide aid to their tribe to appease the slain chief.

Nana Kwekwe Darko III, who tipped the gin on the floor in a Ghanaian tradition of respect for the dead, dabbed tears from his eyes afterward and said he wanted the Dutch to build schools and hospitals for his people.

See what alcohol does to a simple head returning ceremony? People get all maudlin and start talking crazy talk.

I’ll bet the Precedent’s ordered lackies to check out the Smithsonian basement right this second. It’ll be interesting to see if he can get a leg up on the Dutch.

Three or so weeks back, a submerged car was found in the Rideau Canal in Kingston, Ont., containing the bodies of three teenage girls and their aunt — a story initially reported as Mysterious Death Of 4 Quebecers Baffles Kingston Police. When it emerged that the four female Quebecers were, in fact, Muslim, the tearful parents offered up a strange tale of an impromptu midnight driving lesson gone tragically wrong (Driving Lesson May Have Led To Drowning).

…14-year-old Kinza Kaianad died Monday evening…

Her mother, 43-year-old Naila Yasmin, died in hospital on Sunday.

…The third Muslim girl found in the swimming pool has died.

That’s seven drowned young Muslim females showing up in the same morgue within a month.

…It’s all recasting Obama’s image. The cool, crisp candidate who captivated voters last fall has been replaced by a president who is constantly calling for action, with little to show for it and his credibility at stake.

And, oddly enough, they don’t speak to a single Democrat. Not one! But they do have quote from both Sen. Charles Grassley, R-IA…

…”He doesn’t have a plan,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, one of the bipartisan negotiators. “He’s given some broad guidelines of what ought to be done, but you find (the congressional bills) now being completely contrary to the letter that the president sent up here on June 2 when he said that he wanted to bend the inflation curve of medical care downward.”

…and inexplicably leave the last word…to Sen. Jim DeMint, R-SC!

…”We need to put the brakes on this president,” Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., told NBC on Wednesday. “His goal seems to be a government takeover, not making insurance more available. So I do think we need to stop the president on this.”

The list shows that executives and lobbyists began visiting in early February for private meetings on healthcare policy.

Washington – President Obama’s administration began holding private meetings with health industry executives and lobbyists at the White House a few weeks after he took office, a visitor list released Wednesday night by the White House shows.

Oh my, oh my! The word’s getting out! And, in a not-so-subtle slap, the paper again inexplicably leaves as the last word a rebuke.

…Obama released a list of White House visits by healthcare executives after a government watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, announced that it would sue to try to get White House visitor logs. So far, the Obama administration is following a Bush administration policy of refusing to release the logs, which are maintained by the Secret Service.

[* The link I found carries on for a few more paragraphs than appeared in our fishwrap, but the extra hardly qualifies as complimentary, either.]
I’m just thinking that ~ as I said earlier this week ~ there are some serious signs that the worm has turned. As the “digs per article” count escalates, the auguries hint that the “thrill up the leg”/protect at all costs MSM is having to come to grips with the manufactured object of their affection adoration and his real time self. The fantasy of Obama’s election to the presidency and the fact of the amateurish execution of his presidency is expressed perfectly by Kipling: “Never the twain shall meet”.

…are being blamed on the Republicans, isn’t it? Last I checked, Obama’s Party has sufficient majorities in both Houses of Congress to pass whatever the heck they want even if every single Republican voted “no.”

So obviously there are quite a few folks in his own Party that are reading the Legislation…and are horrified by what they see.

…sends Obama some “tough love” today. Add that to Susan Estrich and all the other uber liberal voices yodeling, and you get a picture of luster lost in record time, which is not a good thing if you believe you’re the chosen one. Luckily, I don’t think they make bus tires that big.

If John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson had written America’s bank security standards, Americans would have withdrawn their money from banks. So why isn’t the American public concerned about why the drug companies are in love with President Obama’s health care reform plan?

…Obama has given them a free pass so they don’t have to help pay for reform. As a trade-off for their help in shoving a trillion-dollar symbolic reform plan down America’s throat, Obama has rewarded the drug companies in a big way.

…I have seen firsthand how strong this new friendship is between Obama and the drug industry. When I appear on Fox TV these days discussing this new Obama love affair, I receive the angriest e-mails from viewers who obviously make their money selling pharmaceuticals. The drug company corporate types are no longer calling Obama a socialist. Today they call Obama a visionary mainly because he is their new sugar daddy.

They also like the idea that Obama’s goal is not so much about reform as it is the perception of reform. The idea is to just give the public something.

Ouch. I hadn’t heard the drug angle yet (but there’s also a good chance it got lost in the stentorian cacophony raging about our heads) and I can tell you, this had to about kill him to write. I’m glad he did. While we’re at diametric ends of the political spectrum, we know him personally and the guy’s terrific.

Clinton says she would, as previously announced, sign ASEAN’s seminal Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, a commitment to peacefully resolve regional disputes that has already been signed by more than a dozen countries outside the 10-nation bloc.

The U.S. signing will be by the executive authority of Obama and does not require congressional ratification, said a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the move publicly.

I know I’m not a Harvard educated lawyer, so obviously my thoughts on this should be instantly disregarded, if not outright banned, but doesn’t the US Constitution, that “charter of negative liberties” as he so famously (well, not famously enough) put it, doesn’t the Constitution have something to say about how treaties are to be made

He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;

“Does not require congressional ratification” my ass.

Think he can find 66 votes for this?

More importantly, do you think anyone on Capitol Hill or in the MSM will make him try?

They can “sign” all the pieces of paper they want, but until it is debated and approved by the Senate it means nothing.

He stumbled up the aisle towards us, while Rupert calmly handed me his cell phone and sunglasses and hotel keys, murmuring that I should put them in my purse in case he had to kick this guy’s ass. I admit it was a turn-on.

UPDATE Redux: Instapundit links to 20 questions for Obama’s presser toninght. Barney’s assertion directly impacts the first two, by being able to caveat condescendingly, “Well, it’s not quite as bad as the unemployment rate implies…”

UPDATE: Found it. Run ahead to minute 7:45 and listen carefully. Then tell me what you heard.

Unless my years of working around jets have completely destroyed my ears, I just heard Barney Frank claim that the unemployment figures were distorted because of Congress’s extension of benefits. He said it was an unanticipated consequence of the extension: that more people filed for a now available benefit, which added to the total over-all number. He asked Bernanke what effect that was and the Fed chair said he recalled about .5%. Frank then asserted that “So the .5 of the 9.5%” jobless rate was therefore due to the extension of unemployment benefits.¿Que?!?!?!?

Don’t UNEMPLOYED people apply for UNEMPLOYMENT benefits? That’s how you qualify, right? “NO job”? And those people get counted…don’t they? Is he implying that .5% of folks just left the workforce to be able to sign up…because Congress was handing out money?